Lessons Learned
by Maevenly
Summary: Kara Thrace has said, I love you, five times in her life each time created a ripple effect that had far reaching repercussions. Can she find the strength within herself to live with the consequences of her choices? KaraLee read enclosed author's note.


**Author's Notes: This story contains elements of suicide, child abuse, emotional abuse and true love. **

Please - if you could offer your thoughts, I would be very, very appreciative.

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**The Five Times Kara Thrace Said, "I Love You".**

Jonathan Thrace sat next to his daughter, her small fingers already showing the promise of becoming long and tapered when she got older, and counted out the rhythm her swaying legs matched as she learned her first piano piece.

Leaning all the way over, she strained to reach the final cord just as he counted out, "Six and seven and eight!"

The deep C-flat combination brought the movement to the end. Her smile, full of small, even, baby teeth, already too big for her face as only a child could sport, looked at him in anticipation as she waited for him to tell her how she played.

Shifting his gaze down to his daughter, he teased her by flicking his eyes between the sheet music, her hands and the window several times. He could see her smile widen when she caught on as to what he was doing. His daughter was a bright girl, already he could see the charisma that he exuded when he commanded a concert hall forming in her personality.

"Daddy!" Kara bumped him with her shoulder. His little Kara was also as determined as her mother. That thought chased his smile off his face.

"Daddy?" Kara thumped her knee against his thigh. His little Kara was also empathic; she knew when he was sad.

She also knew what would draw him out of his introspections.

"I love you."

Reaching forward, he closed the binder that held the sheet music and let his fingers, the same that his daughter would grow into later on in life, trail the length of the leather casing.

Sweeping his eyes over every inch of his little girl, he memorized this moment.

"I know, baby. Thank you." Smiling gently, he added, "I think that I have enough, okay?"

Nodding in understanding, as only a child could, she turned away and walked out of the solarium.

Pausing at the jamb, she twisted at the waist, the sunlight streaming through the tall bay windows lighting up her blonde hair, green eyes, and the hint of gracefulness that clung to his daughter like a halo. One more enthusiastic smile was cast at him and his decision became final.

It was that image that convinced him that the Muses would not shun his pre-mature appearance in their gardens.

The Second Time…

Socrata Thrace had stopped raging long ago. In fact, it had been years since she truly lost control. Not since the day she came home and found her husband dead; a bullet from her gun in one hand and a picture of Kara in the other.

Kara.

Her daughter, bane of her existence and a better mirror than the one that hung over her dresser.

The summons to her CO's office came on the heels of a call she received from the headmistress of the all-girl primary school that Kara attended.

Kara had been 'drawing' again.

Not pictures of flowers, skies or the Riverwalk Market Place, but the kinds of pictures her daughter had said she would stop doing.

Evidently, she hadn't.

And, it was her job, as mother and father, to make sure Kara knew that Socrata knew what she had done.

"Kara!"

Projecting her voice, it was only moments before her ten-year old emerged from her bedroom.

"Yes, Mother?" Kara's voice was respectful but hesitant.

Still standing in the parlour, Socrata shrugged out of her jacket and stood there in her double tanks, her dog tags gleaming against the black material.

Stretching out one hand, she waved to the chair closest to the corner of the table. "Have a seat, Kara."

"Mother – Mom – I swear – I didn't mean too…"

She could see Kara's green eyes, her father's eyes, flit between the chair and herself.

"But you did, Kara. We talked about this before, haven't we?" It was a conversation that had taken place before. The same words, re-enforced five times.

"We were – I was in class – and the teacher told us to draw the first thing we saw in our heads."

Socrata let her talk, let her say what she wanted. Her job as a parent did not change just because a ten year old could summon excuses.

"I saw a river. I saw water. I started to draw it. But then, it happened. Again. Right in the middle of class…" Kara, gaining confidence that she had not been interrupted as of yet, rushed her words out. "I swear, Mom – one minute I was in class, and the next minute, I was there…"

Socrata closed her eyes and then opened them – slowly. With an even, gentle, tone she beckoned to her daughter. "Sit, Kara."

Halting steps had her daughter sitting at the kitchen table and in a smooth motion, Socrata was perched on the chair kitty-corner to Kara and reached for the over-sized coffee cup still sitting where she left it that morning.

Spinning the cup between her hands, she looked at her daughter.

"Put your hands on the table, Kara."

Two pale, long fingered hands rested flat against the wooden table top.

Adjusting her position, Socrata crossed one leg over the other and leaned closer to her little girl.

"What have we been talking about, Kara?"

"What I did at school today."

"No, Kara. WHAT have we been talking about, Kara?" Socrata asked her one more time, with a heightened sense of expectation. Her daughter was smarter than the average child, after all.

"You, having to come home early, because what I did?" Kara's voice lilted with hope.

A blur of motion had the breadth of Kara's smaller hand pressed between the table top and Socrata's expertly trained palm. Her right hand had Kara's thumb angled away from the table and strategically placed between the knuckle and ball joint.

"We have been talking about promises, haven't we Kara?" Socrata voice was patient.

"Yes, Mom," Kara's voice trembled.

"What has every oracle we have visited told you, Kara?" Socrata prompted.

"Never blaspheme the Gods and that to be Gods-like is heresy." Kara recounted the lesson.

"What has every priestess ever told you, Kara?" Socrata tightened her grip on Kara's thumb.

"Serve the Gods; honour them by keeping the sacraments they laid down for us." Kara could recite the teachings learned at Temple line and verse.

"You. Are. To. Keep. Your. Promises." Socrata made every word a sentence as the tears welled in Kara's eyes. "Now, say it."

A flick of her wrist at precisely the right angle had Kara jerking to get out of her seat as Socrata broke her daughter's thumb cleanly in two.

"I love you, Mom." Kara's voice was strained as the first licks of pain over-ran the initial shock of how deep a mother's love ran.

"Having. Visions. Is Blaspheme." The crack of Kara's index finger, the bottom and second knuckle sheltered by hands trained to protect, was loud enough to carry over the heavy breaths the ten-year old sucked into her lungs. "Say it!"

"I love you, Mom." The urge to flee was etched into every muscle of the little blonde girl that sat across from her.

"Keep. The. Sacraments." Kara's middle finger snapped like a twig after a hard frost – easily and with crispness. An arched eyebrow conveyed what Socrata was thinking.

"I love you, Mom." Kara's voice was steadier. The pain was overwhelming to the point of numbing, but Socrata knew she did not have her daughter's complete attention. And how was her daughter to learn if she was not properly focused?

"You promised me that you would not have any more visions – and yet – here is the proof!" Socrata waved at the damning picture that rested inside a classroom miles away as if it was hanging on the wall over the sofa. "You lied to me, Kara."

The longest stretch of bone on Kara's ring finger was leveraged against Socrata's maternal instinct and broke under the intentional strain; the previous three fingers had already begun to swell in the wake of her love.

"I. Love. You. Mom." Every word was a breath as she saw her daughter's chin tremble and the tears she held back for so long began to course down her cheeks.

Now, she had her daughter's full attention. Now, Kara was focused.

"You will serve the Gods, you will honour their sacraments, you will not have any more visions, you will not lie to me and you sure as hell will not do this ever again!"

Socrata sealed her lecture with delicacy it took to manoeuvre Kara's pinkie finger into position and brought the edge of her coffee cup down on the tender bone. Squeezing slightly, she looked passed Kara swooning in her chair as she tested the finger to make sure her points were driven home – two distinct halves rolled underneath the pads of her fingers.

Sliding the cup away, Socrata appraised her daughter and took a deep cleansing breath and then released it. Parenting was a full time job unto itself and its complexity was definitely under-rated.

Standing up, as calm and as cool and as collected as she first walked through the door, Socrata realized her daughter had one more lesson to learn.

A fierce backhand connected with her daughter's wet cheeks as her dog tags jangled with the swaying motion of her arm.

"Big girls don't cry, Kara. You wanna be treated like a 'Big Girl'; you had better pay attention to what I say. The minute I think you can't handle it, is the minute I take it away. And believe me; better me – who loves you – then someone else."

Reaching for the hem of her double tanks and settling the layers against the waistband of her pants, she lifted her jacket off the back of the chair, hooked a finger into the fabric and draped it over her shoulder.

Walking away, she heard her daughter say, "I love you, Mom."

She did not see the hardness that changed the colour of Kara's green eyes from soft moss to sea-churned green.

The Third Time…..

"You are so not going to do it." Kara laughed. Her voice was still husky from their recent bout of soul-uniting love making.

"You think I won't?" Lee knew he sounded the same – playful, deep timbered and shivering from the cold. Standing naked under a nebula-painted New Caprican sky in the middle of the night will do that to anyone. Especially since he just had the most soul-searing experience of his life with Kara just moments before and was ready to shout it to the world.

"No. You won't." She giggled. Lee heard Kara giggle for the first time. Who knew she giggled? "Come back here – its freezing!"

Jumping up, he rubbed his hands together and looked down at her still flushed body. "Okay – but remember…"

She giggled again, and this time she twisted to the side before lying flat again.

Taking a deep breath, Lee looked to the heavens and shouted, "MY NAME IS LEE ADAMA AND I LOVE KARA THRACE!"

Running his hands down his arms several times he looked down at her again. "Okay – your turn."

"What?" She was so cute in her confusion. She was even cuter when it dawned on her what he asked her to do. "No. No way."

"Okay, Have it your way. I am just going to stand here until you do." He was flying high on love, post-coital endorphins and the fact that they both agreed to speak to their significant others as soon as the sun rose. Spreading his arms wide, he bellowed, "LEE ADAMA LOVES KARA THACE!"

Turning back at her, he was all smiles and encouragement. He knew she felt the same way. Just because she hadn't said the words didn't mean they weren't there with every kiss she gave him, every caress she stroked his body with, and the way she surrendered her soul when they found completion in each other's hearts and bodies. She just needed to be pushed a little.

"Okay – once more…" Lee hopped from one barefoot to the other as he looked at her expectantly.

And, now he knew what someone meant when it was said that someone had a smile too big for their face because he ran out of room as he watched her get up, wrap her arms around herself and place her feet on a clump of grass near him.

"Gods - it's cold, Lee!" Laughing at the way she shivered, not that her being cold was funny, but more at the way she was laughing at herself for being cold, he waited as he heard her take a deep breath. "Kah…"

She stopped on the first syllable of her first name. Looking at him and looking at the sky, she blurted out, "KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"

And then, she squealed with delight. Kara. Kara Thrace squealed with delight over loving me, was the thought that made him feel smug, joyous, and fearless and scared witless. But it was okay – because she loved him back.

The Fourth Time…

"Kasey? Kasey! Where are you honey?" Kara was as frantic as her voice. Her 'daughter' was missing, Adama had returned to evacuate the Colonists, bombs were going off and she was backtracking to the one place she never wanted to see again.

Crossing the living room, she was about to peer under some fallen section of ceiling when he called out from behind her.

"I knew you would come back." His eyes were dead. Of course they were. He was a machine – a Cylon. He could not be alive but he drew breath, bled and could be killed. She knew because she had killed him five times already and here he was, standing there, with her child in his arms.

"Give her to me." Her tone was a promise of retribution to come if he didn't comply.

"You know what I want. Give me what I want and I will give her to you." His lips moved, but his body stayed where it was.

"She has nothing to do with this. Give her to me, Leoben. Let her go."

"Kara, you know what you have to do." His dead eyes never left her stormy-sea-green orbs.

His tone was familiar, though.

She had heard it before – but not from him – from her.

Sacrifice was one thing. She had done it before when it was just her on the line. Now, there was Kasey to consider. Switching from concerned parent to hardened Starbuck with a flutter of an eyelid, she locked onto the hardness that saw her through her life so far.

"Fine. Whatever." Needing a precious second to form the words he wanted to hear, she focused on a spot on the wall over his shoulder before looking him square in the face and making her voice as devoid of emotion as possible. "I love you."

"And, the second part," he demanded.

"Give me Kasey and you'll get it." The two steps it took to be within arms reach of Leoben, accept Kasey in her arms and place the little girl on the floor was all the time she needed to lock away the precious memories of her time with Lee in the safest recesses of her mind and insulate those memories with the padding of every half-way decent bounce she had.

Making eye contact with the little girl and palming her knife at the same time, she said, "Look away, honey."

Settling her shoulders, she made her arms move and willingly touch the machine that had been her jailer, abuser, tormentor and mind-frakker for the past four months. Angling her head, fighting the bile that rose in her throat, she put her lips to his and kissed the Cylon even as her hand came up and her knife pierced his flesh and severed his artery. But not before his final act of cruelty emotionally raped every aspect of her mind and heart. Only her memories of Lee were safe, but even those, despite the buffers, were scorched along the edges.

A gasp was heard over the sound of bombs falling and Vipers streaking across the New Caprican sky.

It was Anders.

He was standing on the stairs looking dumbfounded as Leoben's body fell to the ground when Kara pulled her knife free of his neck.

Shuttering away her emotions, she scooped up Kasey and took to the stairs. She answered Sam's questioning stare with a terse, "Not now. We gotta get her out of here."

The Fifth Time….

The Observation Deck was closed.

That is, if a certain Captain Thrace hadn't won the combinations on the security lock in a game of Triad when she had been in hack last week.

Sliding a braided, golden cord around the breadth of her hand over and over, she waited. She had left a message for him as well as the sequence of letters and numbers that would get him through the hatch.

It was time. And it was about time that he knew it was time.

Anders had broken their vows when Jean Baroclay was caught on the Prometheus attempting to procure an illegal abortion. Being called up on charges stipulated by the Presidential decree that had been in place before the debacle that was New Caprica, Anders rallied to the red-head's side and secured Jean's freedom by not only professing that he was – unknowingly – the baby's father, but offering to break his banns with Kara in order to turn around and marry Jean in the very same proceeding. It freed her of her marriage without compromising the sacraments.

Dee had been another matter. Her stoic martyrdom that she carried in her eyes and laid on anyone and everyone she looked at earned the CAG a lot of nasty looks, a full 'dance card' and, ultimately, the respect of the crew when he refused to say anything at all about Lt. Dualla.

In the end, it was Lee who placed his ring in her palm and walked away with her signature on the newly drafted divorce papers.

Re-establishing their friendship was the hardest part. How could he trust her? What could she do to truly believe that he loved her?

What it came down to was an epiphany that dated back to the ending of the worlds.

It was Galen, passing her in the hallway, grabbing her elbow and stopping her in mid-stride that brought it all back.

Her memory of the Chief and Tyrol physically standing in front of her merged as the man said the same words, but from a different time, in the exact tone of voice. "Did you hear about Apollo?"

Her world tilted – literally. The axis of the hallway leaned to the left and a sense of vertigo messed with her balance. Several hard blinks rattled her to her core even as Galen looked at her with concern. In the split second it took for her to right her world, everything she needed to say to Lee crowded out a lot of the more menacing spectres from her past.

"Are you okay, Capt'n?"

"Yeah. Fine. Great." She stammered, waving one hand in the air to the rhythm of her words. Whatever was up with Apollo, she would find out later. "I gotta go, Chief."

Coming back to the present, she took in the star-shine. Even if he didn't show, there would be another time.

Bracing her hands on the massive windows, she traced with her fingers the trails of the two CAP vipers coming across Galactica's bow and heading for the front of the Fleet.

Her life was her own now. Power, pitch, roll and yaw of her heart and soul did not belong to Lee, her mother, Leoben or her father. It belonged to her. And she could share it with whomever she pleased. It was a gift – not a curse – to love. It was still frakking scary – she knew she still had shadows that cast dark corners along the edges of her heart, soul, mind, and memories. But they were her shadows that came with the package that was Captain Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace, not something she had to jealously hoard out of fear of tainting the other person that chose to be with her.

If one of Lee's greatest faults was over thinking, one of her greatest sins was being over-protective. It had always made her laugh at how she would listen to Dee exult over how Lee would never let anything every happen to his wife. No one understood why that never made Kara jealous. Who could get jealous of a relationship where the other person was willing to stand in the way and shield the other person from day-to-day living? It took real love to stand along side of someone, while life pummelled away at a loved one, and still be there while the dust settled and rubble was cleared. Her crime far surpassed his.

Softly measured foot steps had her bringing her hands from the windows and wrapping her arms around her waist.

"What are you thinking about?"

His question made her smile.

The need to be honest pried the words from her mind.

"You. Me. But mostly me and what I have to do with you." The way she answered his question made it clear she was thinking about how their lives fit together rather than anything else.

Watching him come closer in the reflection of the window, her smirk was directed at herself instead of the neutral expression on Lee's face.

"You see – I'm guilty. Of a lot of things, but my biggest crime is thinking for other people."

Catching him cross his arms across his chest and perch on the armrest of the nearest sofa, he didn't interrupt.

"Do you know when Starbuck was born?" Pausing, she remembered the day vividly. "My mother had been transferred – again. Another base, another school, another planet even – and I had to adapt – again. But then it hit me. I'd have less to adapt if I only put part of me out there. What if, every time the scenery changed, only a part of me was exposed? It was so brilliant, Lee. And I latched onto it. To the point where I had an alter-ego – of sorts. Don't get me wrong. Starbuck is all me – she's a card shark, loves to drink, gamble, push the envelope. And Kara came along for the ride. Because, after all, Starbuck is Kara, just as Captain Thrace is where Starbuck and Kara meet."

Turning around and facing Lee, for the first time, every pretence fell. Hell, even her voice sounded different and she was choosing words that did not normally flow out of a hard-flying-living-by-the-moment Viper pilot. Tucking the braided rope underneath her arms and out of sight, she took a deep breath. She was going to need it.

"Anyway; what I'm trying to say is that I made the decision that if I chose to be around someone, then it was my responsibility to keep the uglier aspects of myself, of my past, as far away from that person as possible. What I didn't understand was that it was a two way street. As much as I saw it as a responsibility, it transferred over to those who chose to be around me. Because, for a while, it got too confusing trying to figure out who wanted to be with Starbuck during the party and who wanted to talk to Kara after everyone went home. So, I gave up."

"Bullshit, Kara." Lee leaned back and looked at his friend. She had been honest until now. He wasn't going to give her any quarter.

"In a way – but for the most part – it was easier, Lee. Only give them what they can see, share with them what could be viewed through a haze of alcohol and stogies. It was so much easier. That was the reasons why I agreed to marry Zak. Starbuck was all the he seemed to want, all he seemed to need and I was in a place that I thought I could live with that."

"Thought or could?" Lee asked.

"Thought I could; turns out that if I did, I wouldn't be living – I would only be existing. Because as much as I thought I was doing the right thing, I was doing what'd been done to me over and over again."

"Which was what, Kara?" Lee angled his head and the planes of his face caught the starlight.

"I was making decisions for other people, just like other people had made decisions for me." Knowing what he was going to say was a testament to their friendship as she stopped his words with a hand gesture. "Lee, I can be manipulated. Back me into a corner, put the lesser of two evils in front of me, and I can choose the path you want to set me on. Look at my jump to Caprica. Roslin played me like a lyre. But you see, I have met only a few people who are not satisfied with just Starbuck. Even few will let their attachment extend beyond Captain Thrace and Starbuck. I can count the number of people on one hand who demand to know Kara. And, two most important people are standing in this room."

Winging an elbow, she pulled out the braided rope. Lee's eyebrow arched with silent recognition when he saw what she held and the significance behind what it represented.

"I wasn't lying when I shouted to the stars that I love Lee Adama. It was that I loved you as much as I knew how at the time. That included hurting you to protect you from me. I didn't believe in myself enough to realize that if you chose to love me, then you would've already thought about everything that went along with loving me. That you would've already weighed every option and levied every argument for and against getting involved with someone like me." Coming closer to where he sat, she stopped just inches from his personal space. "What I am saying to you now, without expecting anything other than you letting me say this to you, is that I have problems. I have issues. I am going to make some poor choices. But, interwoven among all that, every part of me – from Starbuck to the little girl is still looking for affirmation that she played the piano piece properly and every aspect of me in between – loves you."

Stretching out her free arm, she slipped her fingers between his palm and where his palm rested against his blues and tugged his hand away from his body. Turning his wrist and watching him unfurl his fingers; she delicately looped the golden braid into his open hand.

"This is a Hand-Fasting Cord. We are bound together in our souls, Lee. We are bound together in the stars. We are bound together in duty. This is my promise to you that should you ever want to bind yourself to the woman that is me, for a year and a day at a time, I will not say no." She cupped the backside of his hands and closed his fingers around the gift of her heart in his hands. Bending forward at the waist, she kissed his forehead and gave him a tender smile. The storm that churned behind her eyes had now abated. "I love you: Lee, Major Adama and Apollo."

Stepping around him, she made for the hatch.

"Kara."

His voice had her stopping and turning on her heels.

"Yeah, Lee?"

He was by her side in three long strides.

"Walk you back to your quarters?"

Nodding her head, she smiled.

"I would like that."

Watching him open the hatch, she held out her arm and did not lower it until she knew the coast was clear.

Crossing the threshold, he pulled the hatch shut. Sidling up to her right side, he threaded his fingers through hers and leaned his mouth heart-hammering close to her ear.

"You know, I bet we could find some very interesting applications for this Cord before we go and see the priestess in the morning."

Bumping his hip with one of her own, she mischievously smirked back, "You know, I know I would like that as well."


End file.
